A Grand Pause: Stranded on a Raft in the Middle of Japanese Islands in World War II

by Gary Santos

The following is an excerpt from Gary’s book, A Grand Pause, based on an incredible true story that took place in the midst of World War II, in May, 1945, A Grand Pause follows two American airmen, Ensign John Morris and his gunner Cletis Phegley, after they are stranded on a raft in the middle of Japanese islands, surrounded by a cutthroat enemy. What follows is a daring rescue mission by the USS Randolph and her war-weary crew, as they struggle against enemies, both physical and psychological, to bring their brethren home safely.

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A bygone Wind stirs the eastern sea. In the starless night, the unseen breeze is unwelcome. It has a malicious consciousness, whispering to foretell the coming tempest. In morning’s first light, the zephyr grows furious by design. It arrives with a horrifying screech and even the greatest vessels cower to its might. Beneath is a watery grave, a refuge for the resting victims of the storm, both steel and flesh. From the portal of yesteryear, the Wind blows into the present with all its destructive power. The Japanese call it Kamikaze.

Monday, May 14, 1945, the 1,255th day of the Pacific War. Germany surrendered a week earlier, but in the boundless Pacific, the war rolls on with the kinetic energy of a tidal wave. As America celebrates victory in Europe, the US Navy is caught in the turbulence of the bloodiest and longest battle of its 175-year history. The Fifth Fleet, composed of hundreds of warships and support vessels, loiters off Japanese-held Okinawa. Marines and soldiers are engaged in a savage fight, known as the ‘meat grind,’ since April 1. However, more sailors are dying at sea than marines and soldiers ashore in the mountainous purgatory.

The unusual wrangle is the result of the most accurate and lethal cruise missile in the history of human conflict—the guidance system being a man. Named after a mythical Wind, Kamikaze, they exact a horrific human toll. Since the Navy gathered off Okinawa 54 days earlier, 106 vessels have been struck by a torrent of aluminum rain.

The aircraft carrier USS Randolph cuts through the eerie morning darkness. Three solitary figures with varying talents, differing ranks, social standings, and regions, stand on the open fantail, strangers and oblivious of each other. All deep in thought. The trio, also, battling the battle within.

The ship has been in continuous action for a month and a half, and combat fatigue is slowly wringing the depleted crew. In the age of sail sea battles were one-day events. Even at the onset of World War II naval engagements were relatively short affairs; the pivotal Battle of Midway lasted four days. More recently the largest naval battle in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944, was also fought in the span of four days.

The wild swings of fear and adrenaline races with each attack then drops to sheer weariness during quiet hiatuses only to surge again with the next assault. This emotional imbalance causes a mental and physical breakdown, especially on the carriers whose crews are at the suicidal epicenter. The sailors of the Fifth Fleet are experiencing the psychological toil of protracted combat. It is a phenomenon experienced by ground troops in sustained engagement. For example, as in the Somme during the First World War which dragged out for 140 days. It is normal to be ‘scared to death,’ but when the sensation occurs without disruption it becomes debilitating. No other fleet has ever endured the crippling effects of combat exhaustion for such a period.

The fantail of Randolph juts out over the angry sea like a luxurious veranda, except crammed with two quadruple 40-mm quad mount guns. The quad 40s are cold and silent now, but they glowed red with fury yesterday. Eugene, Wellington, and Mike stare into the blackness.

As the ship rises and lowers, the sailors’ ‘sea legs’ are their balance mechanism. Months earlier, the motion felt like they were climbing and descending ladders all day long. Now they scarcely sense it. Neither do they hear the sound of the throbbing engines beneath their feet or the monotone banging of a chain against the ship. The backwash from the four thrashing fifteen-foot propellers in the water, thirty feet below, create a translucent light green wake, gradually disappearing into the void of night. A curious sight but it does not register with the eyes. The smell of salt air is occasionally mixed with whiffs of noxious fumes from the hangar deck but it does not stimulate a sensory reaction. They pay no attention to the clamoring of noises behind their backs: ratchets, clanks, bangs, squeaks, an occasional moan. Totally ignorant of the loud thrums of machinery every time an elevator raises planes to the flight deck for the morning launch. After six months at sea, you exist in your own personal universe.

Dark-haired and 140 pounds, Eugene Santos’ shoulders droop from the stress of war. In many ways he is an example of American innocence. Young and naive to the intricacies of geopolitical entanglements, he finds himself at war. The formerly vibrant teenager should be playing stickball with friends on Manhattan streets. Instead, he finds himself a hemisphere away on a ship of war where his life is measured in inches and minutes.

That damn bugler sounded Reveille at 0200, spoken oh-two-hundred. The ship went to general quarters an hour later in preparation for combat operations. Every morning Randolph warms up in her little corner of the ring, jabbing in place, sharpening the blood sport of war. Yet, earlier in the night battle-stations was prompted by a Japanese snooper fixated on doing just that…disrupting sleep, making dull that much needed focus. The crew walks with a catatonic blankness. Sleep deprivation is a fact of life in the fleet.

Eugene’s tired eyes, weighed by exhaustion, stare into the night but cannot see the darkness. Instead, his tortured memory replays the terrible images of May 11. On that horrible day, during a much needed break, he casually observed a neighboring aircraft carrier, USS Bunker Hill, landing planes. Returning fighters and bombers buzzed overhead in a majestic choreography known as the landing pattern. A scene so grand the teenage spectator pays no attention to an ominous gray cloud parked above Bunker Hill. The ship had just taken on two million gallons of aviation gas (avgas) and a fully armed strike group sat in the hangar awaiting their turn for take-off. She was a tinderbox. From the gray of the cloud two planes sprang out at a weird angle to land. They must be low on gas, he thought. Expecting the planes to pull out of their dives, his eyes helplessly followed the long plunge into USS Bunker Hill, a sister ship of Randolph. It was surreal. The crews were not even at battle- stations. The Kamikazes seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Bunker Hill suffered one convulsive blast after another, engulfed in flames from bow to stern. She was a funeral pyre. For the last three days, the fidgety Eugene plays back the explosions in his head with vivid detail over and over—in an endless loop. Young Eugene knew the death toll was dreadful. Scuttlebutt says hundreds perished, but the actual number of dead was 389.

If ever there was a ghost ship, Bunker Hill was it. The following day, burnt corpses were arranged on the ravaged flight deck. So ensued the longest memorial service in Navy history. Chaplains went to each body and prayed. Six bodies at a time were slid into the ocean by the burial detail as a Marine Honor Guard fired twenty-one gun salutes. By the time the 389th body was returned to the sea eight hours had elapsed.

The nineteen-year-old enlistee removes his white cloth Dixie-cup cap and wipes his face. He already survived a Kamikaze attack himself, in March. His face is blank and the hand crunches the cap as Eugene travels back in time. The largest naval base in the world is not in the United States, England, nor Japan. It is tiny Ulithi Atoll. The atoll is on the western tip of the 2,000-mile long Caroline Island chain, some 1,300 miles south of Tokyo. It is the forward operating base in the war against Japan. The circular ribbon of coral reefs is lined with white sandy beaches and palm trees, consisting of forty small islets barely poking above the waves. The largest islet is only half a square mile in area, but the chain of rocks ring a huge 200 square-mile natural harbor, large enough to shelter the entire fleet. The presence of Ulithi was concealed and considered top secret. Despite all the subterfuge, the Japanese knew of it. Two twin-engine Yokosuka P1Y ‘Frances’ bombers arrived overhead in the dead of night on March 11. Almost 700 ships peacefully rode anchor in the calm waters of the atoll. The serenity was shattered at 2007 hours…one Kamikaze crashed into Quonset huts on Ulithi and the other hammered into Randolph’s stern. Eugene Santos was in the hangar sorting mailbags mere paces from the impact.

He never heard the explosion but distinctly remembers the blinding flash. That flash still shakes him by the shoulders when recalling it. Eugene was buried under heavy mailbags which shielded him from the explosion. Luck saved the New Yorker but twenty-seven shipmates around him were not as fortunate. Without such coverage, they lay dismembered or cremated beyond recognition. There are four ways to identify a body, the metal dog tags round the neck, names stenciled on clothing, personal items in pockets, or by dental records. All but two bodies were identified. Since Randolph was not at sea, the bodies were temporarily buried in Ulithi until a refrigeration ship could transport the remains back home.

The fantail beneath the brooding teenager’s feet still bears the scars of that wound. Eugene plops the Dixie-cup cap atop his head and wearily shifts memories to his enlistment on February 11, 1944. He sighs. It was two months before Eugene’s eighteenth birthday and his dad had to cosign the enlistment papers. The safety of ship-borne service was appealing compared to the inherent dangers of the Army or Marines where firefights might kill him. He had a better chance of surviving a war on a ship, or so he thought. “Now the soldier in a foxhole on Okinawa stands a better chance of living than me,” uttering silently in sarcasm. He begins to wonder if he will ever see his beloved hometown team the New York Football Giants again. In fact, he was listening to the radio broadcast of the Giants game on the Day of Infamy when news of the Pearl Harbor bombing broke. Three years later, the Giants had the best record in football and went to the championship game, eventually losing to the Green Bay Packers. Randolph was at sea and Eugene knew nothing of the championship until days after. In the enormity of an unmerciful World War, football just did not seem relevant.

But young Eugene yearns for the days when it did.

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Gary Santos has worked in aviation for over 35 years as an aircraft mechanic. He attended City College and College of Aeronautics. A lifelong New Yorker, he currently resides on the South Shore of Long Island. He has extensively studied the history of the ship his father, Eugene Santos, was stationed on during WWII, the USS Randolph, and collects WWII memorabilia. He resides on the South Shore of Long Island, NY. For more information, please see: https://www.ussrandolphcv15.com/. You can connect with him on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/agrandpause/.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.